Declared an "Event of High Cultural Interest" by the Dominican State Secretariat of Culture

Presented by:
Eduardo León Jimenes Cultural Center (Centro León)
Institute of Caribbean Studies (INEC)
State Secretariat of Culture

Announcement:
Goals of the Conference

The International Conference on Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC) is intended to unite scholars, practitioners, and those interested in Caribbean music and dance every two years in order to exchange knowledge related to these pillars of regional culture and to propose holistically-oriented policies to strengthen cultural identity in national and regional spheres. The event is conceived as a critical, multidisciplinary space of reflection, through which research, experience, and findings related to music, identity, and culture in the Caribbean may be socialized.

The conference is produced with pedagogic intent, and so the organizers hope for a significant participation by educators of different levels, as a way of involving the educational system and thus improving artistic education in the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean.

Predecessors: MIC-I

On April 8, 9, and 10, 2005, the Eduardo Leon Jimenes Cultural Center (Centro León), the Institute of Caribbean Studies (INEC) and the State Secretariat of Culture, successfully organized the first International Congress of Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC), dedicated to the theme "Merengue in Dominican and Caribbean Culture." In this way, the sesquicentennial of the first recorded appearance of this dance music in the Dominican press was commemorated.

Merengue is a symbol of Dominican culture, widely accepted as popular culture by all sectors of society. In this way merengue has served as a musical insignia of the Dominican Republic, since it unquestionably registers the rhythm of life of Dominicans and identifies them to the world.

Central theme of MIC-II: "Son and salsa in Caribbean identity."

The central theme of the second conference makes it an event of international dimension, since both genres have achieved high levels of recognition throughout the world, having a nearly global impact. Many names of musicians and singers are widely known in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, the zones of priority for the inauguration of this event.

MIC-II will be a means of sharing knowledge that may contribute to the understanding of son and salsa as musical, historic, and sociocultural phenomena and to favor lines of work that strengthen Caribbean-area cultural identity. The event will be dedicated to the history, characteristics, and future of these two styles, whose musical cells are crossed, and which both inside and outside of the region are recognized as typical of the Caribbean, although they are practiced outside of its geography.

General themes

The MIC-II conference will convene with the general theme as an indication, not a limit. Son and salsa will be approached as music and dance genres in relation to:

• Their role in the identity of Caribbean peoples on the islands and elsewhere
• Cultural patrimony and heritage common to the peoples of the region
• Musical traditions in various countries: Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, United States, Brazil...
• Its role in the mental representations of the Caribbean
• Cultural syncretism and processes of transculturation and conservation of cultural identity
• Musical culture of the Caribbean and its connections with academic music
• National identities and cultural heritage of Latinos in the US
• Their presence, diffusion, and assimilation in different geographic, social, and cultural contexts: North America, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia (particularly Japan)
• Their assimilation in popular sectors of the Caribbean and Latin America
• Economic, political, and sociocultural contexts: migration, urbanization, industrialization, and mass communication
• Means of musical socialization and their role in cultural development
• Ideological aspects: traits viewed from the perspectives of ethnicity, gender, social class, and others
• Language, lyrics, and their relations to the Spanish language
• Connections with Caribbean literature, particularly their reflections in the story and the novel, and their links with popular (folk) poetry
• Links with daily realities in different environments
• Origins, history, and evolution in different geographic environments
• Discographies
• Musical histories of creators and groups: precursors, pioneers, founders, and emblematic figures
• Instruments and organology
• Aspects of African influence in Caribbean music related to the two genres
• Styles or variants
• Traditions and innovations, fusions and transformations
• Intergenre musical relations, such as: son and salsa, son and jazz, salsa and merengue, etc.
• Caribbean dance: choreography and dance forms, places for dancing, discotheques and parties
• Spectacle and the performative modes in which the two genres are realized
• Economic aspects, commercialization, the discographic market and cultural industries
• The manufacture of instruments: industrial and artisanal
• The role of radio, print publications, TV, and internet in their diffusion
• Recording technologies, editing and diffusion, and the general role of technology in the evolution of the two genres
• Processes of internationalization
• Strategies for approaching them as means of cultural identification and civic education

• What is the relationship between the various sones of the Caribbean?
• What has been the role of the son and how has it developed since the Cuban revolution?
• What is salsa? A movement? A musical genre? A means of cultural differentiation for Latin Americans? A means of resistance? A transnational identity?
• Is salsa in crisis? What aspects, and in what sense?
• Salsa and merengue: competitors, or complementary?

Participants

MIC-II is directed to a wide audience, both domestic and foreign. Those called to participate include practitioners of son and salsa, as well as researchers in diverse disciplines, communications professionals, producers of public programs, musical impresarios, filmmakers and other interested parties. In addition, the conference is open to persons from cultural institutions, private and governmental, who are involved in the design and management of sociocultural policies and activities.

Date and location

MIC-II will take place the 13, 14, and 15 of April, 2007, in the facilities of the Centro León, city of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

Program

Through presentations, paper sessions, debates, publications, concerts, exhibitions, and a program of preparatory activities (which includes research, sociocultural activities and entertainment, and encounters with musicians, scholars, and music educators), an environment will be produced that will permit the development of new ways of thinking about and acting on music and cultural identity in the Caribbean, both within and outside of the region.

• Keynote addresses
• Paper sessions and debates
• Art exhibitions
• Presentation of new books, journals, discographies, and audiovisual ítems related to son and salsa (previously authorized by the Organizing Committee)
• Son and salsa concerts, where the diversity, richness, and transformations that both genres have experienced through their histories will be demonstrated, including traditional and modern styles
• A book of conference proceedings will be published
  The organizing institutions will put up web sites and a virtual forum on the Internet in order to facilitate continued dialogue. In addition, informative bulletins will be sent periodically by email.

Deadlines

December 5, 2006: deadline for receipt of paper proposals. Interested parties may consult rules on the site: www.centroleon.org.do/congreso, request them by email to: inec97@yahoo.es, or pick them up directly in the conference offices.

• March 1, 2007: deadline to receive final papers. Papers that arrive after this date will be disqualified.


• March 15, 2007: deadline for speakers to confirm their attendance and to make hotel reservations.


• March 20, 2007: deadline for registration of participants.